Out of the registry, Viola followed the address on that yellowed form and took Elaine further into the Arosa Old Quarter.
Elaine was somewhat deflated, though on reflection it made sense. There was not one certified scrap of information attached to her whole person; it would have been a miracle if the registry had simply said yes.
Nothing for it. They could only head for the place they had been given.
The nearer they came to the centre of Arosa, though, the more crowded the streets grew. The houses on either side almost touched, and the narrow eaves cut off most of the sunlight; only a few harsh shafts came down through the gaps to land on damp, blackened flagstones.
Crates and rags nobody had got round to clearing were piled along the walls, and a few bare-chested workers crouched resting in the shade with sweat running down their shoulders and backs.
Word had it, though, that the Arosa Old Quarter was due for redevelopment next year. Turned into some sort of industrial park, they said.
Elaine pressed the hood of her cloak lower.
"How much further?"
"It should be just up ahead."
Viola glanced down at the address in her hand, then looked up to make out the crooked house numbers on either side.
"That's what you said last time too."
"Last time I only went down one wrong alley."
"It was three."
Viola's step hitched and she turned to glare at her.
"Arosa's house numbers are a mess to begin with. What has that got to do with me?"
Elaine didn't pursue it. She only watched her turn the address upside down and check it once more.
If there hadn't been so many people about, she would probably have turned back by now, because Elaine was feeling more and more strongly that the Viola in front of her was on the unreliable side.
The Red Vein Relief Society was not hard to find.
Before she saw the sign at the door Elaine smelled the meat broth. Beans stewed soft, cheap minced meat and spices all together, covering over the drains and the sweat around them.
Several faded tents had been pitched along the street with a not especially orderly queue beneath them. Some people held chipped wooden bowls, waiting for soup. Others leaned against the wall with heavily bandaged arms showing.
A few Relief Society members in plain long coats moved back and forth through the crowd, changing dressings for the injured, or carrying over low stools, and reminding anyone who had gone white in the sun to go and rest in the shade.
The place was just as run-down as everything else, and far quieter than the registry had been.
Nobody was arguing themselves red in the face over trifles, and even those who weren't injured and had come only to beg a bowl of broth were dealt with seriously.
Viola stopped at the entrance, her expression visibly easing.
"See? I told you this place was above board."
Four or five years ago House Rosenfeld had funded this organisation too, but later the family set up its own charitable body, and its funding of the others naturally came to an end.
As for why Viola hadn't used her own family's organisation to get Elaine a legal identity, the reasons were simple.
The first was that House Rosenfeld's charity was not a local-level charity. The second was that almost all of House Rosenfeld's charitable work was in the Upper City and the Middle City, where the population rules were stricter.
Elaine followed her gaze.
A very large iron pot stood in the middle of the courtyard, steam rolling up off it in layers. An old woman drank slowly from a wooden bowl held in both hands, and the worker beside her made a point of adding another spoonful of minced meat to it.
"Have you been here before?"
"No."
"Then how do you know it's above board?"
"The people at the registry all say so, and House Rosenfeld used to donate money to it."
Viola said it as though that settled the matter. Elaine looked at her for a while.
On anything connected to House Rosenfeld, Viola turned extremely confident.
"So you trust things that easily?"
Elaine could only conclude that the girl in front of her was far too naive. Fortunately she herself wasn't a bad person.
Perhaps her family spoiled her too badly. And with a character like hers, presumably nobody around her ever dared say anything except what she wanted to hear.
"What do you mean, again?" Viola frowned and was about to go on when a little girl with a thickly bandaged wrist came running out from behind one of the tents.
She had a stack of freshly washed wooden bowls in her arms and was moving rather too fast, and she nearly ran straight into Elaine. The top bowl wobbled, and Elaine put out a hand to steady it without thinking.
The girl found her footing again in a fluster and looked up at her.
A corner of long silver-white hair showed from under the cloak. She froze for a few seconds, plainly struck by the sight of Elaine, then recovered quickly and asked in a small voice:
"Are you here for soup too, big sister?"
Elaine glanced down at her.
The girl was about ten. Her cheeks carried an unnatural flush from too long in the sun, her light brown hair was stuck to her forehead with sweat, and the bowls in her arms, though washed clean, had edges knocked into pits and dents.
"No. We're here on business."
Elaine had only just started to speak when Viola answered ahead of her.
"To arrange a local certification."
Hearing the words, the girl nodded as though they were very familiar to her, then held the bowls tighter and glanced into the courtyard.
"Then you want Doctor Marlow, inside. He's the one handling registrations today."
When she had finished she stole another look at Elaine, her eyes lingering on the few strands of silver-white hair that showed, and only then hurried away with her bowls.
The courtyard was larger than it looked from outside. Old buildings and hastily raised tents ran into one another, and bandages and washed white cloth hung drying beneath the eaves; when the wind came, a few corners of cloth drooped limply down. Several wooden beds stood along the wall, some with people resting on them, others with bandaged legs exposed, waiting quietly for their dressings to be changed.
A few children crouched beside the water buckets rinsing the emptied bowls one at a time. The water had already gone cloudy, and still someone kept bringing more used bowls over.
The big pot in the middle of the courtyard was still giving off steam.
Every turn of the long-handled wooden ladle brought split beans, leaves of vegetable and very finely cut pieces of meat up through the thick surface. Most of those in the queue did not leave once they had their broth. They carried their bowls to the wall or the steps and sat down, blowing on it and drinking it slowly to the bottom.
Elaine noticed that nearly everyone here was quiet, and not the sort of quiet that has to be enforced.
More as though everyone knew that here, at least, they would get a meal, or have a wound they had been carrying far too long finally seen to.
Viola had clearly noticed it as well, and what wariness was left in her expression relaxed entirely.
"I told you there was nothing to worry about."
In truth even Viola hadn't expected a local relief organisation in a Lower City district like Arosa to be run in such good order.
She had seen the state of relief stations like this before, and there were always a certain number of discordant things going on in them.
Elaine didn't answer her, only went on looking further in.
A dark red wooden board hung at the door of the old building right at the back, painted with a thin line dividing away to either side, and beneath it the words "Red Vein Relief Society", the paint already somewhat faded.
Several benches stood by the door, full of people waiting to be seen.
One had a hand pressed to their stomach. Another's arms were covered in scars left by burns. A grey-haired old man dozed against the wall, his chest rising and falling slowly with his breathing.
The two of them had barely come close when someone inside raised his head.
A middle-aged man in a grey-white long coat, cuffs rolled to the elbow, a little ointment still on his fingers that he hadn't wiped off. He looked at Viola first, then at the Elaine hidden under the cloak.
"How do you do, two beautiful young ladies. May I ask what brings you here?"
The man's Lorenian was less than fluent, as though he were not from the Kingdom of Loren.
"Um, hello, Doctor. We're here to arrange a local certification."
Viola handed over the form from the registry.
He took it and ran his eyes down it. His expression barely changed; he only pointed at an empty bench to one side.
"Sit down for now."
Then he drew a fresh sheet of thin paper out from under the desk and laid it over the form.
"Once I've finished with the people here, I'll give her the basic examination. If there's nothing wrong, we can issue a temporary certificate today."